Parveen Bala’s trial will be held next Tuesday and Wednesday at the Lautoka Magistrates Court

From Fijileaks Archive - One judicial workshop excuse after another!

It's good the Sri Lankan magistrate assigned to hear killer Minister Bala's case has taken off to attend a workshop. Hopefully he will learn at the workshop that justice delayed is justice denied - which has been the case in the Bala case for the victims. One would have thought the magistrate had learned that at his law school. But it's never too late to learn. Perhaps the workshop will also remind the magistrate that the law is meant to be applied with equal consideration to all citizens regardless of their status. Some times magistrates forget that - especially when they fall under political sway. I am sure the workshop the magistrate is attending has a beginning and an end with the customary speech making and paraphranalia . When it ends, the magistrate should go back to work - and do the right thing in the Bala case - as his professional duty demands.

Reply

Sam

28/6/2016 11:01:36 pm

Control of the prosecutors and judiciary in political hands is the greatest damage this regime has done to Fiji. Khaiyum controls and directs what matter to investigate (police, FICAC), who to prosecute (DPP, FICAC), has created a parallel prosecuting body taking instructions directly from him (FICAC), and has absolute control of the judiciary, even to the extent of sending words and phrases which must appear in the judgments. Such control is a solid trait of a vicious dictatorship. Even Rabuka wasnt this vicious and had allowed the judiciary to work independently. That is why Fiji rose so rapidly after 1997 constitution. To rise from Khaiyum's reign will take a long time.

Reply

Pita

29/6/2016 06:46:28 am

The ridiculous delays in hearing this case casts doubts on the integrity and notion of the independence of the judiciary. It therefore undermines the Constitution. Who ever is responsible is guilty of a crime against the Constitution. Where are the guardians of the Constitution like the Chief Justice, the DPP, the Minister of Justice and the Fiji Law Society? Their silence is deafening.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

Leave a Reply.

Author

"...Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy... censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives." --Robert A. Heinlein, -If This Goes On